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<item>
<title>Looking Plastic</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/8/18/faa434b729fa9248a89a5f319892df02.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[I love Japanese women.  I feel some of the most beautiful women on the Earth live in Japan.  On average, in Tokyo at least, I think most women are just gorgeous.<br />
<br />
That said, I also think that some of the most plasticized women are located here.  For instance, the Kanno sisters, Ayumi Hamasaki, and the girl in the picture, Yuri Ebihara.  Ebihara just doesn't look natural to me.  I can't spot what the problem is though.  Too much make up?  Plastic lips?  Unnatural nose?  Either way, every time I see her, I get a little afraid....]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 18 Aug 2007 22:26:55 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/8/18/faa434b729fa9248a89a5f319892df02.html</guid>
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<title>Japanese Women And Their Dogs</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/9/9/f0c86898a4bb9630e865e3d5de4270a7.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[One other aspect that makes me hate Roppongi is how recently it's become a secondary home for various Tokyo canines.  What that means is tons of unkempt pockets of brown stains litering the ground everywhere.  Trust me, this shit gets old fast (pun intended).<br />
<br />
The situation has got on my nerves so badly I've suddenly realized there's a definite relationship between Japanese women's intelligence and their pets.  For instance, I saw a woman bearing a pooch with a friggin' halogen lamp around it's neck!  Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but if you saw the poor sucker, that's the first thing you'd think!  No doubt the woman thought her dog was stylish to match her own elegance.  But of course to afford such fashion I theorize such a woman sucked off an executive at her office to get into her position of luxury! (She was by herself and probably her partner or whatever was thankful not to be in such an embarassing moment).<br />
<br />
Then you have the various monstrous dogs around the area.  There was a huge german shepard near the Sofbank phone shop on the corner.  A german shepard in Tokyo.  where the hell do you put such a thing?  My apartment can barely hold me.  Another goofy woman had two huge entities near the Tully's by Hills, which were flirting with another woman's miniature.  WTF?  This was like a killer whale trying to hump Nemo.<br />
<br />
I'm getting more and more convinced to move out from here....]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 09 Sep 2007 03:55:04 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/9/9/f0c86898a4bb9630e865e3d5de4270a7.html</guid>
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<title>Where Women Belong in IT/Engineering</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/2/16/c218239716b46b95cbf3c8ebc9153601.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[I honestly have come to believe that women do not belong in IT/Engineering.  Yes, there I said it.  I'm a bigot.  Sue me.  But I think that women are counterproductive and not conducive for a thriving IT industry, unless the following recommendations are made.<br />
<ul>
    <li>Women make great project managers.  I think women are better project managers maybe even pure managers than men.  The reason is that women actually try to understand people rather than look at pure deliverables.  Actually, the more I think about it, it's better to have women exclusively as project managers leading a team of engineers who are for the most part men.  Also, the organizational aspect and multitasking parts make women natural project managers.<br />
    </li>
    <li>Women make excellent help desk support.  1st level support.  Answering phone calls, trying to honestly help people.  Guys are terrible at this type of thing.  Guys lack the patience, organization skills and ability to handle screaming jerks on the phone.  Also, the fact that you need to handle multiple things at once make this an automatic winner for women.</li>
    <li>Pure managers who have no technology decision making powers.  See project managers.</li>
    <li>QA.  Again it seems natural that women can figure out how to break a system better than a guy.  My mom would never be able to get a printer to work.  So if she served as a QA person, companies like HP would figure out that their products are far too delicate for the average person.<br />
    </li>
    <li>Web Designers.  Not HTML coders, but just the look of a page seems better suited for women.  After all, women read all those magazines and have a naturally better eye at color than most guys do.</li>
</ul>
Roles involving heavy technology just do not fit women.  To be a technologist, you have to <em><strong>LOVE</strong></em> technology.  Watch the Dilbert cartoon episode where Dilbert gets pregnant to see the difference in viewpoint between when he was a guy and when he became a woman.  The thing is that most women I meet in technology aren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary to succeed as a technologists.  For instance, giving up Friday night to go out with their friends just to figure out how to implement a piece of source code.  Or going to the local Best Buys/Akihabara and buying components to setup their own system, then installing Ubuntu or some other Linux OS for their home desktop.<br />
<br />
Also, I find women, for the most part, to be disruptive to engineers.  Ever participate in a computer class where you have some cute ladies and a lot of geeky guys?  Ever wonder how the cute girls get the best grades at times?   Ever see a woman try to make enterprise technology decisions and then utterly destroying any possible productive technology culture that could come to be?<br />
<br />
Now, I don't blame women <em>as women</em> for this flaw.  I do think it's how they're socialized.  And maybe this will change in the future.  For instance, rather than being pressured at school to go on dates and playing with Barbie dolls, they can be pressured into liking RPG games or building Lego, watching Star Wars and coding rather than watching Strawberry Shortcake.  And to counteract the stereotype of getting good grades in computer courses, girls should reject any advances from guys in helping them out and proudly failing tests when they know they're no good.<br />
<br />
The thing is that women cannot act like a stereotypical woman to succeed in IT.  They have to act more like a dude and change their way of thinking about computers and their relationship with computers.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 16 Feb 2008 07:16:47 -0700</pubDate>
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